There used to be a tradition among burners to stop for a moment every day and howl at the setting of the sun over the western mountains of the playa. I would love to see this honorable tradition revived throughout the city this year. I urge everyone to spread the word among your campmates, people that you run into and meet, make notices and post them throughout the city to raise our gloriously lusty voices together as a greeting to the oncoming night and all that happens in it.

Imagine the rolling, increasing volume of happy howling as everyone releases their inner Lobo Spirits in unison across our fair city! I will be working with our camp (Cats!Cats!Cats!) as a Greeter this year and will spread the word to them to encourage the revival of this venerable and sorely missed tradition to the people we greet upon entering the playa.

Come on people nowHowl at your brotherEverybody get togetherand try to Howl with one another right now.

Lamplighters is a wonderful volunteer opportunity and I would encourage everyone to take advantage of it. The power of rites is indisputable.

Howling is for the rest of us. Raising your voice in unison with everyone across the city doesn't mean that it cannot be done with a solemn and salutorial wail. I wouldn't typify the howl of the wolves that I have heard as being anything other than genuine and purposeful.

I am proposing a wider group participation in a rite as genuine as the Lamplighters.

People still do cheer and howl at sunset (and sunrise, to a lesser degree) and they have every year that I've been there. The 1st time I heard it, it took me totally by surprise and I couldn't figure it out until the next. "Good lord, what is everyone cheering at? What incredible mutant vehicle must be passing? Is there a parade? Why is some guy a half mile away cheering too?" Needless to say, I couldn't have been on the Esplanade at the time, or it would have been more obvious.

After you get used to the sunset cheers, the first time you're awake for sunrise and it happens again (even though it seems less likely) it's kinda wonderful.

I've mentioned it before once or twice to virgins, but I've stopped doing that spontaneously. I don't want to take the surprise away from anyone.

Also . . . the scattered nature of many small cheering sections, sometimes miles apart, makes for an eerily beautiful sound. I'm sure if the whole city was doing it, it'd be interesting to hear how it changes, but I kind of like the strange quality of the sound right now.

*** 2017 Survival Guide ***"I must've lost it when I was twerking at the trash fence." -- BBadger

I remember hearing the sunset salute every night in 2007 - howling, car horns, any thing loud - and folks with arms raised facing the last bright rays. I don't think I've ever experienced it like that since then. Would love to bring it back! Let's spread the word.

Savannah wrote:I've mentioned it before once or twice to virgins, but I've stopped doing that spontaneously. I don't want to take the surprise away from anyone.

My first year I was way overprepared for the burn, mentally. There were surprise experiences in store for me, of course, but throughout the week I had very few moments of the surreal, the completely and magically unexpected.

Yet when people started howling at the moonrise before the temple burned, I was completely thrown. And loving it

Only through ePlaya did I learn that it was A Thing to howl.

When he lights his streetlamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower.When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep.That is a beautiful occupation.

YES!! THE HOWL!!! OMG!! THAT is a very important little preserved tradition and fact of Burningman...The mountain ridge to the left that the sunsets upon has been refered to as The Mountains Of The LOOOOLOOOLOOOO!!!!! and it is answered in kind by THe original Flaming Lotus Girls piece. Keep BURNINGMAN AMAZING!! DO NOT FORGET TO LOOOLOOOLOOO!